Genasys, a leading provider of emergency alert software, had an attractive pitch for California County looking for a seamless way to send evacuation orders at the click of a button.
Fascinated by the better prices and the features of the Signier, Riverside, Inyo and Monterey counties have switched to Genasys after spending a year of testing, debugging and training staff with software.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles County waited just three weeks before deploying Genasys in early December, according to archived alert metadata. A month later, the system was put into the ultimate test as a catastrophic wildfire erupted throughout the county on January 7th.
Quick Turnaround raises questions about the amount of time county officials have been allocated to debug software and train employees with new technology.
The false evacuation order that roared on LA County mobile phones on January 9 has already rattled out frayed nerves, resulting from an error in version 2, a new repetition of Genasys software. Ta. The alert breakdown continued to ring the next day, sending evacuation orders to people miles from danger.
On the night the fire broke out, emergency officials also failed for hours to send evacuation warnings to residents of Western Altadena, where Eaton’s fire fatality caused all 17 people.
Only one person from the county’s Emergency Management Office had sent out three fire alerts that night that would infuriate, according to the county, including the sender’s email address. According to a review of the metadata, the official who sent all alerts from 7pm on January 7th to 7am to 7am on January 8th would use Genasys’ alert software to county alerts in emergencies. I’ve never sent it.
It is unclear whether authorities were unable to order an alert for Western Altadena during the chaotic nighttime fire driven by extreme winds, or whether they are new to Genacy’s faults or new systems. The coincidence regarding the county’s evacuation warning is the subject of both federal and county investigations.
The county’s emergency management department refused to answer questions about the migration to software called Genasys Alert, citing the investigation. However, in a statement on Jan. 10, county officials said they had assured the company that it added “safeguards for its software.” The county temporarily stopped using the software after an accidental countywide warning.
“We cannot choose the timing of the emergency that will hit LA County, but we can continue to work to ensure we are using the latest technology available,” the emergency office said. This week, the Times added that they followed best practices by “maintaining a duplicate system that allows for mass notifications” before switching.
The emergency management office has switched to Codered’s Codersed, a former emergency alert system, Onsolve Codered, which spent $321,000 on software over a year, spending $321,000 on the software, according to a county agreement with Genasys.
The software can be customized for the county, and officials from other jurisdictions said they spent time training staff and kink training. When authorities first got it in late 2022, the first version of Genasys alert software “contained many bugs,” said Kelsey Scanlon, director of the Monterey County Emergency Management Department. He said.
Most of the glitches were minor – not. During the test, authorities were prevented from sending emergency warnings. Genasys determined it was a technical glitches and fixed it within days, said Tracy Molfino, the county emergency services manager.
“We’re lucky we had a very long testing phase,” he said. “The problem hasn’t surfaced again, but it was a big deal to not be able to send that alert.”
After acquiring the software in 2021, Riverside County ran Genasys Alert “side down” on the old system for about a year, sending real alerts through the old system and simulating sending alerts through the Genasys platform I did.
Shane Reichard, spokesman for the county’s emergency management department, said:
William Turner, head of Connecticut’s Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, said the training is important when switching alert systems.
“You’re basically holding the key to keep millions of people alert to the system,” he said. “And if you’re not trained or have never practiced it before, there’s a possibility of an error.”
LA County also promoted a longer transition period when it switched to OnSolve in 2017. Jeff Reeve, then director of the county’s Office of Emergency Management, sought five months of overlap “to ensure sufficient time to transition” with the previous system, according to county records. Ta.
This time, when county officials jumped on the Codered Genasys, they settled down for a much shorter overlap.
If the county wants to test the emergency alert system without telling a resident, it can send an alert to the test server. LA County sent its first Genasys test alert on November 18th, according to the test alert database. Onsolve said the contract with the county ended in a week and a half.
It is not clear why the county did not choose a longer transition period this time. The county has used a variety of Genasys software aimed at evacuation planning since 2022, and emergency alert experts may have felt that emergency staff were familiar with the company’s products and felt comfortable switching faster. I say there is.
The system took its first real-world test on December 9th during the Franklin Fire. According to an analysis of archived alerts, the county successfully sent several evacuation orders for Malibu using Genasys.
Hurricane Force winds then spread embers across the area on Jan. 7, and LA County officials had to send dozens of evacuation warnings related to the Pallisard and Eton fires. The majority came out as planned, with two glowing hiccups. False warnings across the county and lack of alerts to the Altadena area west of Lake Avenue. Many of those neighborhoods were levelled in flames.
According to the agreement, the county had previously tapped Genasys to create an evacuation zone for emergency warnings. According to a public map hosted by the company, Lake Avenue serves as the boundary for many of the Altadena zones.
That split line was found to be a problem during the Eton fire. The east zone of Lake Avenue received multiple evacuation orders as the fire spread across the area. The lake’s west zone was not evacuated until nearly 3:30am.
Inyo County, which used Genasys to create the evacuation zone, said officials must coordinate parts of the zone where the divider is Main Street.
“The Genasys algorithm was blocking it, so one side of the street was one zone and one side of the street was the other,” said Mikaela Torres, emergency manager in Inyo County. “And we’re never going to evacuate the northern half of the street without evacuating the south.”
County officials told reporters that decisions will be made on when and where evacuation warnings will be sent in coordination with the county emergency management department, sheriff’s department and the county fire department. The county hired external consulting firm McChrystal Group to review the county’s evacuation policies and emergency warning notification system.
Kevin McGowan, director of the LA County Emergency Management Department, said it was part of the review, so he answers questions about how much training county officials have been in the new warning system. Although he refused, he emphasized that “everyone who used it used it, trained.” The alert metadata included three emergency management coordinators and one supervisor. , indicating that there were four people from the Emergency Management Bureau.
In the aftermath of the wildfire, Genasys CEO Richard Danforth touted the company’s role in evacuation as a historic success.
He said the business continues to boom.
“Through the incident, Genasys has experienced an unprecedented level of inbound investigation into both software and hardware solutions that are expected to be converted to new bookings over the coming months,” he stated. I’m writing this in.
Times staff writer Grestohay contributed to this report.
Source link
